Members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Kwara State have staged a protest against the leadership of the party in the state over alleged imposition and swearing-in of a factional Local Government Party Chairman in the Ilorin West Local Government Area of the state against court ruling.
The PDP members, in their hundreds, stormed a hotel in Ilorin where the state’s party executive members were holding a meeting, chanting abusive songs and carrying placards to express their grievance and opposition to the action of their leaders.
The popular hotel around Offa garage area played host to hundreds of angry members of the People’s Democratic Party who stormed the place condemning the imposition of one Amuda Olugbon as the Chairman of the party in Ilorin West Local Government Area.
Some of the party elders who came for the meeting had it rough with the angry members, as they had their caps and headgear removed, while those already inside peeped through the window.
It took the intervention of the proprietor of the hotel to prevent the mob from storming the meeting as they attempted to break the window without success.
In order to save the situation, policemen were drafted in to ferry the party elders out of the place but not without molestation and shouting from the aggrieved crowd.
Explaining his grievances in a press conference in Ilorin, the candidate who claimed to be the duly elected party chairman of the Local Government, Toyin Olosasa, stated his rejection of the swearing-in of Yusuf Olugbon as the PDP Chairman in the Local Government.
He alleged that the 15-member executive committee led by Olugbon was inaugurated clandestinely on Wednesday by the State Party Chairman, Iyiola Oyedepo. He described the inauguration of the Olugbon executive, despite a subsisting court order stopping same, as illegal and a rape of justice.
Reacting to the allegation, the State Chairman of the Party, Iyiola Oyedepo, noted that three executives emerged from different congresses who petitioned the National Secretariat.
He stressed that the directive and recognition from the national headquarter made him to swear-in the Amuda Olugbon executive and wondered why the members should complain or blame him for that decision.